


rising stars

by idolatry (bellmare)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Friendship, Gen, NaNoWriMo 2015, Plans For The Future, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9616019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/idolatry
Summary: Prospects for the future.-- Kai, ensemble.





	

_ Pursue your future career at the University of Y _ , the heading of the topmost booklet announced with a certain degree of portentousness. Its contents were hardly better; the author of the booklet had been rather enthusiastic about extolling the virtues of the educational facility it was advertising; each bullet point sounded distinctly excited. Kai rather disliked the look of it; if he didn’t know better, he’d have wagered the stately serif font was trying to mock him.

“What’re you doing?” Mei asked, watching as he fumbled and shuffled through the stack of promotional pamphlets. She looked both faintly amused as well as disapproving as he shoved the booklet in question right at the bottom of the pile.

“It offended me,” Kai said, wedging it in place. “Whoever designed and wrote this must’ve been high.”

“Nobody’s out to get you,” Mei said with a kind of pitying air. At least, that’s what he decided to interpret it as. Kai ignored her, in favour of shuffling the booklets some more, like they were some large and unwieldly stack of playing cards. Then, he fanned them out face-down, and held the stack out to the next person closest to him -- in this case, Savera. She glanced at the booklets, then back at him. “What’re you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Kai waved the stack impatiently. “Pick one. That’s clearly the only way we’re gonna get things done today. You guys have been hemming and hawing over this all morning.”

“So have you,” she said. “Besides, this is kinda redundant. You can still tell from the back cover what institution this is for.”

“Aha, but you can’t tell what course it’s for. You pick the first one you choose. No exceptions. No take-backs.”

“Uh,” Savera said, not sounding terribly convinced. She picked one anyway, flipped it over, and tried to put it back. Kai snatched the brochures back. “Hey! What did I say?”

“I don't know. I wasn’t listening,” Savera said.

“What did you even get?” Kai tried to crane his head to get a better look. Savera covered it instinctively, then frowned down at herself, before reluctantly showing him the front cover.

“Oho. Medicine.” Kai gave her a once over. “Not something I’d have thought was very up your alley, but I could see it working.”

“Can I get a get out of jail card,” she asked, still diligently trying to shove the booklet back into his hand in the most subtle way she could manage. “No,” Kai said, and picked one himself. Then immediately tried to put it back. Savera’s hand shot out, clamping around his wrist.

“Kaito,” she said, very slowly and almost sweetly. "What did you say earlier?" Kai sighed and flipped the booklet around to show her. She stared at it for a full five seconds, before stifling a laugh. “No offense, but you and performance arts don’t mix.”

“Right? Uhh, I guess I’ll make an exception.” Kai stuck the pamphlet back into the pile, and this time let Savera slide hers in as well, before reshuffling the lot. “Fine, one re-draw. But not until the others have gone at least once. Deal?”

“Deal.” Savera sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. On her other side, Rui – who’d been watching the proceedings with a thinly-veiled mixture of impatience and amusement, half-lying on the tabletop with his cheek pressed against the wood -- made a loud, vaguely sighing noise of complaint. “Why are we even doing this?”

Kai jerked his thumb at Sho, who had the grace to look apologetic. That was really all the answer anyone needed.

Rui didn’t look convinced, but he jerked upright abruptly when Kai leaned towards him across Savera, the brochures outstretched. “No thanks. I was just expressing, uh, curiosity. Not interest.”

“They mean the same things,” Kai said.

Rui’s eyes narrowed. “Ooh, someone’s been reading the thesaurus.”

“Shut up and take one, before I force-feed it to you. And  _ you _ won’t get a free re-roll, if you insist on being such an pissbaby about it.”

Rui made another vaguely complaining noise, but picked the topmost brochure. He took one look at it, groaned, and wedged it under his arms to use as a makeshift -- and very miserable -- pillow. Kai stared at him. “Does that mean you wanna keep it?”

“Uh, hell no.”

“What did you get, then? And if you don’t want it, put it back.”

“Philosophy,” Rui said, and made a face. He did put the booklet back, at least.

“Oh.” Kai shuffled the stack again. “I guess I don’t blame you. I got economics.”

“What’s wrong with economics,” Sho asked. He’d plucked one of the brochures out of Kai’s hand without prompting, and was now deeply engrossed in reading it. Or perhaps looking at the pictures. Kai wasn’t sure where Sho’s literacy with the common written language was, at this point in time.

“Because it’s boring as shit?” Kai asked. Sho frowned, still not looking up from his booklet. “I think everything has potential to be interesting. You’re learning things you wouldn’t know or learn about otherwise!”

“Aw, look at him. So bright-eyed and idealistic and so willing to squander away his life and time,” Kou said.

Mei glanced at him. “You mean like you?”

Kou ignored her. Sho chose that moment to point at the title of the brochure he was reading and ask, “what does this say?”

“Off to a fantastic start,” Savera said. “It’s chemical engineering.”

“That sounds cool,” Sho said, opening the booklet again. “I think I’ll keep this one.”

“Nerd,” Rui said. “Maybe you’ll want to brush up on algebra and some other basics first. Like reading.”

“What’s algebra?”

“Off to a fantastic start,” Savera repeated. "I'm sure we can all pitch in to help tutor you."

“I prefer plain old chemistry, myself,” Rui said. “You get to blow stuff up. Don’t mess around with engineering, there’s too much shit to remember there.”

“Because  _ you _ can’t remember jackshit,” Kai snorted. Rui looked offended. “You ass! Take that back.”

“Nah.”

“Shut up, unlike you lot I don’t need to fuck around with college degree roulette, or whatever. I already know what I like and what I’m gonna do, so I’m gonna stick with it. Count me out of your medieval decision-making.”

“Such big and fancy words,” Kou commented. “You really have been brushing up on your reading.”

Rui’s brow furrowed. “What, medieval? How is that a big and fancy word?”

“It has more than two syllables.”

Rui grinned lazily, displaying rather sharp teeth. “Fuck off.”

“I also want to do biotechnology,” Sho announced to nobody in particular. “Does that come under chemical engineering?”

“Why do you even wanna subject yourself to that?” Rui asked, after he was done with his initial bout of spluttering. “You’re such a masochist.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” Mei said. “Starts with L. And I’m pretty sure he’s also a masochist.”

“Shh, not so loud,” Kai hissed. “The walls have ears.”

The newspapers at the sofa crinkled and crumpled loudly. “He’s not interested in bugging anyone’s houses,” HP said, then raised his brows at their expressions. “What? Oh, just keep on carrying on with whatever you were doing. I’m just here to help facilitate your decision-making.”

Savera was the first to break the silence, after everyone stared at each other for a bit, at a loss with what to say. “But you’re not doing anything,” she said.

“Nonsense. My sheer presence is motivational and guidational enough,” HP said, and disappeared behind the newspapers again.

“Guidational,” Kou repeated, but didn’t make further comment.

“I still think this is a honking waste of time,” Kai muttered. The newspapers rustled again; Kai knew full well HP was only pretending. He never read the business inserts, for god’s sake. “It’s for your own good,” HP said. Kai frowned at him; he could only see the top third or so of HP’s face, but had the feeling HP was seconds away from cracking up in a fit of loud and very distracting laughter. “Bel wants to make sure you lot have plenty of skills other than breaking things.” His gaze slid between them, from Rui, Savera, and Kai, to Mei and Kou. “Be it property, people’s things, or people themselves. And eating. All useful skills to have in your repertoire, perhaps, but she’ll be pretty sad if that’s all you can do.”

Kai muttered, "didn't know she was capable of being sad."

"Those who live in glass houses,” Kou said, his voice trailing off.

HP lowered the newspaper slightly. Kai could now see the top half of his head. “Sorry, what?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t Sparky and Beansprout have to join in this fun career counselling session, anyway?” Rui complained. He had now graduated to trying to figure out how to make his arm a more comfortable headrest.

“Mils is with them, they’ve got a training session going on. Unlike you,” HP said, once more getting fake-engrossed in his newspaper, “they don’t quite excel as much in the fields of breaking things or eating their body weight in a single sitting. Or both. I have high hopes for them, though. They’re being taught by the best.”

Kai broke into a fit of coughing. Savera stepped on his foot, and gave him a warning look. He stopped abruptly; now his toes hurt like hell. To distract himself from it, he waved the stack of brochures at Mei’s general direction. She reached forwards and slid one out of the pile, and gave it a cursory glance. “Oh, law.”

“Oh, law?” Kai echoed, and snickered. “What, not your thing? I thought it suits you. I heard lawyers are soulless, ruthless fu--ow!”

Savera had stepped on his foot again, this time somewhat less gently. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her give her head a brief, urgent shake.

“Because lawyers are sharks, of course,” Mei replied, seemingly not hearing his earlier outburst. “It’s a pretty well-known stereotype in popular media. You should go study that, it’ll be a riot. I mean, how many people can say, ‘hey, my lawyer is a shark, and also a  _ real _ shark’? Exactly,” she said, before Kai could even say anything. “And then maybe you’ll get famous and become a celebrity judge with your own TV show, and there’ll be lots of fangirls throwing themselves at you. Well, I guess you have to be a lawyer first, before you can be a judge. Baby steps. But hey, everyone likes a hot celebrity lawyer.”

Kai blinked. “You just called me hot. Which, mind you, is nice and stuff, but I’m more worried about it coming from you.”

She smiled in that manner which Kai had come to describe internally as cherubic. And, like true cherubs -- and not the cute, fat babies that were popular for use as symbols of Valentine’s Day and other such saccharine imagery -- it was more than slightly horrifying. He decided to drop the matter, and shift out of Savera’s foot-stomping range and Mei’s immediate radius while he was at it. Despite himself, he picked up her discarded brochure. “I guess when you put it like that, it  _ is _ kinda funny,” he admitted. “And that’s pretty much the best reason to ever do anything.”

“See?” Mei was still wearing that cherubic smile of hers. “You should listen to me now and then. It’s good for you.”

“Man, I dunno.” Kai flipped through the pages, feeling a headache building when he looked at all the numbers and thought about all the things he would have to read. “Can’t we just do our own thing? It’s Sho’s damn fault he didn’t get the memo and decided to shack up in the mountains for the better part of the last century, while we were out and about and getting stuff done. Hell, I wanna do what he did. Sho can study his ass off for the next couple of decades, get acquainted with how far the world and civilisation has come while he was busy being an elusive bastard mountain hermit. The rest of us can chill around in the meantime.”

“I don’t think you’d want to be an elusive bastard mountain hermit,” Sho said. He was still stuck on the second page of his chemical engineering booklet. “A lot of mountaineering, infections, eating weeds, thinking about eating things like snakes and dragonflies.”

“I don’t know how they did it,” HP said suddenly, to nobody in particular.

“Who did what?”

“Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud.” HP waved his hand; the entire newspaper page sagged and flapped. “Carry on. It’s weirdly entertaining, hearing what you kids think about.”

“Glad to be so entertaining,” Kai grumbled. “But no, I guess mountain hermitage isn’t quite what I had in mind. I was thinking more of that book. Y’know, that boring-ass book about some old bastard that goes out into the sea to find this magic white whale, or something, because it pissed him off. Though sometimes it sounds more like he wants to fuck that whale.”

“ _W_ _ hat _ ,” Savera said, after everybody was silent for several very long and awkward moments. "What kind of weird shit are you reading?!"

Kai raised his brows. “What? It’s true. The entire story is so suggestive. I wonder what the author was on.”

“No. That’s enough. I’ve heard enough. Stop talking.”

Kai made a very unattractive choking sound. “I don’t want to do that, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I mean, just the romanticism about sailing the seas without a care in the world. Pursuing elusive treasure. Uh, I meant this other book. About some other old dude who went seafaring or something. People like writing about old men and the sea a whole lot, don’t they? But I guess I do like the idea of it. Nothing but the clothes on my back and a trusty boat I built myself. Go where the tide takes me, discover lost and sunken empires. Unravel the mystery of that shipwreck place. I’d like that a lot, actually. Maybe I could even write a thesis on all those, while I’m at it, to make the boss lady happy.”

Mei laughed. On any other person, it would have best been described as an undignified guffaw. “I think I know the book you’re talking about. Somehow, I doubt you’ve read it. The primary school abridged version for babies, maybe.”

Kai felt his mouth drop open. “Excuse me? It’s only a hundred pages! You can’t get more abridged than that. And I may or may not have read it in the crapper. Someone left it in there, y’know. I read it in  _ one sitting _ .” He paused, thinking his wording over. “That is to say, one  _ shitting. _ I’m a fast reader.”

“Wow, you are so gross,” Mei said. “Too much information.”

“It wasn’t me who left the damned book in the crapper! I even brought it out! Damned saintly of me. I could just have left it in there.”

Mei waved dismissively. “Right, okay. We’ll have a beatification or canonisation ceremony tomorrow. Whatever.”

Kai glared. “Finally, some appreciation around he--wait. Don’t you need to be dead to have those ceremonies?”

“Yes,” Mei said, very innocently. “Why?”

“Children,” HP said, though he sounded more amused than anything else. He also wasn’t even looking at them. Perhaps he’d stumbled on the advice column section of the newspaper.

“Personally, I think that whale story is a lot more entertaining,” Rui said, idly flipping through a pamphlet.

Now was Kai’s turn to be surprised. “You read it?”

“Maybe. I thought the title was funny. It has  _ dick _ in it. I think many a piece of literature would be vastly improved if it had  _ dick _ in the title.” Rui named a few, looking increasingly pleased at himself and his title revisions.

“You make everything sound like a really bad porno,” Kai said. “But realistically, did you even read any of those books?”

“Maybe,” Rui said again. “Why, have you?”

Kai smirked. “Yeah, I have, actually. That whale one isn’t half bad, even if it gets kinda weird at parts. You’ll be surprised.”

“I’m not surprised that would appeal to you the most,” Kou said. “You always went on and on about wanting to be a pirate when we were kids.”

“Well, yeah. What’s wrong with that? It’s exciting as shit,” Kai said.

Mei draped herself over Savera’s lap, and swiped one of the discarded brochures from the table. She held it over her head, the ends of her hair almost skimming the floor. It was Savera’s medicine booklet; Kai had brief, horrifying mental images of Mei working at, god forbid, an actual, normal human hospital, and had the sudden and hysterical urge to laugh. She seemed to sense his discomfort, and arched her neck to give him a very piercing and upside-down look. Kai coughed and looked away before she could inquire further.

“At any rate.” HP gave up on pretending to be incredibly fascinated by stocks, currency depreciation, and capital gains. He proceed to fold up the newspaper in what was the most deliberately awful way Kai had ever had the misfortune to witness -- errant creases everywhere, unaligned corners, some pages folded right down the middle -- and set the lot back down. Kai was pretty sure HP only did it just to annoy some people. “Think of it as a little contest,” HP said. “You’ve competed over who can hit each other the most in a training session, so now you can compete over who gets the most degrees or letters of glowing recommendation, or whatever. You guys can decide the terms of the competition amongst yourselves.”

Savera raised her brows. “Did you guys do that too? What exactly is the point? Other people complain enough as it is, just getting one degree. I don’t see this being much fun at all.”

“Oh, yeah, sure we did.” HP shrugged. “Though I didn’t keep up with the rest for as long as I could have. It’s not for me.”

“Who lasted the longest?” Rui asked.

HP scratched his chin. “Lysander, obviously. Jae and Lottie were runners-up, but I think even they were pretty over it, after a while. It’s frankly quite amazing what some people will do to avoid things they don’t want to do but should be doing.”

“Uh.” Kai frowned at him. “What?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“And what’s the point of winning that kinda contest? Apart from amassing a lot of useless knowledge that won’t serve you in the grand scheme of things,” Savera added. “I guess that can be useful in the right situation and context.”

“Well, yeah,” HP said. “Knowledge is power, as they say.”

Rui snorted very loudly. “You don’t sound like you believe that yourself.”

“It’s not up to what I believe,” HP said magnanimously. “It’s what  _ you _ believe.”

“How inspirational.” Kou didn’t sound terribly impressed.

“But of course. I  _ am _ your supposed guidance counsellor, after all. And I always do my job. Besides, don’t you like being able to win arguments by saying ‘because I am an expert in that field and you’re not, so sit down and shut up’?”

Kai burst out laughing. “What the hell. Who even says that?”

“Lysander,” HP said with a very straight face.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“No, honest. You’ll be surprised. He uses it a lot more than you’d expect him to, though I can never tell when he’s being serious or not. He’s a pretty salty bastard, when he gets right down to it.” HP paused, deep in thought. “Though in some situations, sour would be more apt. Or bitter. I guess in that respect, he’s kinda like a margarita.”

“I like margaritas,” Rui said. “Drinks  _ and _ tiny snacks. Sign me the fuck up.”

“Ah, now I remember,” Mei said. “You went out with Sho one night and ordered a few pitchers of margaritas.”

“He loved them,” Rui said, rather defensively.

“I can’t believe you just called him that,” Sho said suddenly. Kai was surprised; he thought Sho had fallen asleep with his eyes open, zoning out from reading through the prerequisites for his course. “Is that a thing you guys do? Call each other nicknames based on alcoholic beverages?”

“Oh, sure,” HP said, looking pleased at the segue in topic. “I call Mils a Long Island iced tea. Looks sweet and innocent, can knock you flat on your ass if you underestimate it.”

“Sounds about right,” Kai muttered. “What about the boss lady?”

“Bel? Oh, uh. Good question.” HP crossed his arms and leaned precariously back in his chair. “A Bellini, maybe. Or maybe a Death in the Afternoon.”

“Why do they call it that?” Sho wanted to know.

.

“... and that is how we ended up wrapping things up shortly after lunch,” HP said to Millie. “So we didn’t really end up getting much down, but I think some of them have a clearer idea of what they wanna do. So all in all, a pretty successful day.”

“You’re a terrible influence,” Millie said without glancing up from the menu she was studying.

“I know. Do I look suitably contrite?”

Millie looked up at him, and laughed. “You look like you’re thinking about whether you want the ribs or the burger supreme, and you’re agonised because you want both but you also want the BBQ platter.”

HP checked his reflection out on the back of a large soup spoon. “Well, that too. Thoughtful and contrite, I can do both.”

“You don’t look contrite,” Millie said, returning to perusing the menu. “If anything, you just look extremely proud of yourself for corrupting our juniors.”

HP burst out laughing. “Really! I’d say they managed to corrupt themselves pretty damn well without my expert intervention and guidance. Don’t you worry, Mils, they’ll catch up to us in no time. I’m so proud of them, they really know how to enjoy themselves.”

“Next time, I’m giving your job to Lysander. At least he’ll be able to wrap things up in one session.”

“I can see that ending so well. He’ll probably be asking you to assign them back to me before the day is over. You know he doesn’t like kids.”

“They’re not kids, they’re ... uh, young adults in need of some guidance for their futures.”

“And somehow I kinda doubt Lysander would have too much fun with that. “ HP put on what he thought was a suitably irate expression, and lowered his voice. “I can barely even guide my own future, let alone other people’s futures.”

Millie’s lips twitched, but she didn’t quite grin. “You’re awful. Anyway, who got the most smashed? I’m surprised they lasted this long, if you guys have been at it since lunchtime.”

“Hey, Sho wanted to know why a Death in the Afternoon is called that, so we had to demonstrate. Sho was also the one that got the most smashed. Hands down. Last I saw, Kai was carrying him home. And  _ man _ , I don’t know what he did, or rather, what Lysander did, but his leg suddenly lit up with all these lights. Like it was a disco in there. It even started playing some weird music. Then when we couldn't stop it, it started going off like a siren and everyone was staring, so we had to leave. Maybe you should get Lysander to look into  _ that _ first.”


End file.
